The event run from March 31st – April 2nd, 2017. It was a not-to-miss event. Hackers from various tertiary institutions gathered to work on ideas that promotes financial inclusion in the Ghanaian and market and African market on a whole. This year’s event saw some interesting hacks/solutions from these brilliant upcoming future changers. I’ll go through a few of them I found interesting. To follow the full recap, you can follow the Twitter hash tag for the event for more info: #StanbicHackLab

To begin with, let’s discuss the winners and their solutions they presented. This is going to a be brief one.

CASH PRIZE AWARDS

Winner – GHC 3,000.00

Team: We Code

Winners – 2017

1st Runner Up – GHC 1,000.00

Team: Unique Geeks

1st Runner Up

Best Idea – GHC 4,00.00

Team: Sperix Labs

Sperix Labs

Best Pitch – GHC 4,00.00

Team: Room 63

Best Pitch Award

Most Promising Developer – GHC 400.00

Most Promising Developer – Mawutor

Now to the ones I found interesting.

Cactus – By Mawutor (Most Promising Developer Award)

Cactus is an innovative idea/solution to buying digital currency online using any mobile wallet, and especially using Slydepay. If you know me well, you know I’m a big fan of Bitcoins. You can actually buy or sell some Bitcoins from my site at: www.coinforest.net

Cactus by Mawutor

So what is Cactus? Cactus helps you purchase Bitcoins with ease using your smartphone. You simply sign up for an account; get a unique bitcoin address for your transactions and make purchases. Simple as that.

Roots – By Team Roots

One other service I found interesting was Roots – service that bring demand and supply together by leveraging the escrow system of trade. Imagine you had to sell an item. You visit a typical classified ads site to post the item and wait and hope that someone needs your item to buy.

Roots has reversed this process. This is how it works: Now the one demanding the item/service simply posts a request on the platform (App or web version); anyone with the item responds accordingly with the specs the “demander”stated; they both have a chat session, come to an agreement. The demander makes payment to the platform (not directly to the supplier); once the item gets submitted to the demander, the suppliers gets paid. Everyone is happy and satisfied.

Roots has found a way to leverage on the escrow system hitherto has not been utilized by any service in the country. They are yet to launch fully, and when that happens, I’ll surely be the first to utilize it.

So this is where I end my yammering about HackLab 2017. Hope to see you there next year for another epic hacking moment.